Republic of the Moon opened at the Bargehouse early in January. The exhibition brought together a collective of artists by the same name to reengage artistically with the subject of humanities lunar ambitions. Their mission is laid bare in an elaborate manifesto containing “a mixture of artists’ statements about what they’d do if they got to the moon, some poems, a scientific paper, a couple of rants”.

It is true that the moon has waned in our collective consciousness. Perhaps when Neil Armstrong set foot on Earth’s nearest neighbour in 1959 our view of it as an object of romance and mythology was shattered. Maybe the subsequent decades of failure to capitalise on that achievement killed our hopes of a brave new world of space colonisation. Perhaps, living as we do in cities, the moon is simply less present, hidden by buildings and light pollution, the very hallmarks of our terrestrial malaise.

The show itself is housed in a patchily refurbished warehouse and described as a lunar embassy on earth. It exhibits a variety of attempts to explore our relationship with the moon and its future. Leonid Tiskov’s Private Moon shows a photographic series that explores one man’s very personal relationship with the moon. Using a luminescent replica of a crescent moon, the images powerfully reclaim half-remembered romantic associations in a deeply intimate way. Tishkov moon have travelled the world for almost ten years creating a stunning narrative of the moon and her admirer in a landscape.

Probably the most talked about artist in the show is Agnes Meyer-Brandis, who’s poetic-scientific investigations balance precariously between absurdist humour and whimsical speculation. Inspired by a story written by English bishop Francis Godwin in the 1630s, she documents her attempt to structure a training programme for a flock of geese preparing them for a flight to the moon. The result is frankly adorable, particularly her filmed attempts to teach her adoptive goslings the fundamentals of rocket science. The film is an engrossing watch and a deserving winner of the Ars Electronica award of distinction winner 2012. Meyer-Brandis’s work is supplemented by a collection of installations, including a proposed design for a moon goose colony and control room.

Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Moon Goose Analogue, still

What can a collection of artists tell us about and essentially technological endeavour? The exhibition is a blazing example of art/science collaboration and its potential value. The artists involved all seek to provide an emotive and spiritual response the subject. Through this exercise they also provide visions for the future that centre on the human and social aspects of moon colonisation the is divorced from the dry practically of space travel. The show’s curator emphasised the point in an interview with TimeOut, saying “This isn’t a science communication show. Artists come at things from a different angle. Their job is not to explain science but to reflect on it”.

Republic of the Moon is at the Bargehouse until 2nd Feb, 11am-6pm daily. Free admission.

This week we hear from Andy Roast, an ex-science communication student from Imperial College London who shares with us a condensed version of his dissertation that explores how metaphor is used extensively in art & science collaborations.

Last year I was lucky enough to meet some real-life, art-science facilitators. The MitoSys project aims to observe the interactions between 600 proteins involved in cell division, with the goal of uncovering how individual protein molecules contribute to cell division as a whole.

This is an interesting scientific project. But even more interesting from an art-science perspective is that the multimillion Euro’s worth of funding provided by the European Commission came with a condition: that there must be a public exhibition of the results.

Enter Marina Wallace, Professor of Curating at University of the Arts London: Central Saint Martins and Director of the art-science organisation, Artakt. Marina is well known in art-science circles, having successfully curated many exhibitions including one about the pioneering geneticist Gregor Mendel at the Abbey of St Thomas in Brno: the very place in which he worked.

My role with this group was to observe how curators and art communicators facilitated a discussion between scientists and artists.

C P Snow is well known for noting that discussion between the ‘two cultures’ of art and science is rare. Perhaps this is due to the different purposes of each subject: science, through method and reason, attempts a precise description of natural occurrences, whereas art can convey an idea, feeling or emotion.

In reaction to interdisciplinary subjects such as art and science collaborations gaining more of a foundation in the academic community, Central Saint Martins have developed a new MA which encourages its students to integrate the creative relationships between art and science with their work. Here’s Sivan Lavie – one of the course’s latest intake – to tell us what making the transition from scientist to artist really feels like, and how her past academic experience as a scientist is fuelling her work as an artist.

I’m a psychology graduate, from the University of Birmingham. Upon finishing high school, I wanted to read a subject that combined all my interests, in writing, creativity and scientific evidence, so I chose psychology. I had a very interesting three-year experience. But on the side, at night in my room, I would make art. It was a gradual process that spilled out of me, I didn’t really see myself as an artist until I was in my third year, yet creating was an integral part of my life, and going to see art at galleries was something I always craved. I took art at school, yet felt restricted by the silent consensus of what ‘good’ art should look like (mostly a realistic painting style) and felt very offended when a classmate said my drawings were ‘cartoon-like’.

Art school, Central Saint Martins, is the opposite of what I experienced at high school. It’s also nothing like studying psychology at Birmingham. The Art and Science MA started running in 2011, having its first graduate show in May this year. From my first day this September, I was filled with wonder, as the twenty students in the class are all from diverse backgrounds, from quantum-physics to the history of public hygiene, to anthropology. But all of them are also deeply passionate about art, which makes it such an intriguing pioneering experience. Art and Science is a relatively new field; we are stepping on fresh ground as a class, and forging links between the scientific and art worlds. Coming from different experiences, our art techniques are dissimilar, yet interconnections can be illustrated and deepened as we work together and learn about each other’s disciplines.

Coming from a class of two hundred, from which only about ten students actually cared about psychology, to a class of twenty students who are eager to learn, experience and grow, is something that inspires me, as well as being in the centre of the art world, here in London.

Work by Holly Owen another student of the CSM MA

My amalgamation of art with science focuses around affective disorders, specifically depression, and its bidirectional relationship with art. Having suffered from clinical depression as well as having studied the illness to great detail at university, I believe it is thoroughly important to educate the public about the sheer force of depression and its related phenomena, to remove stigma and undervaluing of the illness. Grayson Perry said in his Reith Lecture series that art’s function as the communicator of ‘the big ideas’ has been eclipsed by the media. Personally, I think that the media educates us to a certain degree, but with mental illness, especially affective disorders, seeing art can be imperative, because art holds a truth, a strong emotive effect that speaks louder than words. Perry adds that art has the advantage of ‘seeing the real thing’, which feeds into my idea of the experiential aspect, essential for comprehending an affective experience.

A piece by Sivan

As the year progresses and we’ve already had an interim-interim show, we hope to continue to utilise all resources we have, from fantastic workshops here at CSM (from photography-developing to silk-screen printing to metal-work), the amazing opportunity of being in a vastly creative environment with people from numerous disciplines who we can share ideas with, glean information from and collaborate, by creating links with art-science societies such as the Wellcome Trust, the GV Art gallery, and looking into our own scientific fields and finding subtle, interesting connections with art which can be further explored.

If you’re looking for inspiration, this week we hear from Royal College of Art alumnus Gemma Anderson who tells us about her experience as Leverhulme Artist in Residence within the maths department at Imperial College London.

Our artistic collaboration began in 2011, when I found myself reading the article ‘A Periodic Table of Shapes’ in the Imperial College Newsletter. The article described the research of Mathematicians Tom Coates and Alessio Corti, who study geometric forms called Fano Varieties that are “atomic pieces” of mathematical shapes.

I immediately took the article back to my studio and began making drawings, exploring the Fano forms. This subsequently developed into a full collaboration, first with Coates and Corti and then later also with Dorothy Buck.

Drawing has played an essential role in our project. During hundreds of conversations about scientific ideas — about string theory, hyperbolic geometries, polyhedra, topology, knot theory, DNA, and many other topics — drawings have formed the bridge that allows interdisciplinary communication.

These drawings are largely informal, notational, and schematic. They accompany and form an integral part of conversations, with drawing functioning as a non-verbal, intuitive language for scientific concepts. The precise role of drawing differs from place to place in the conversation: communicating the visualization needed for understanding; sharpening these visualizations; or creating understanding (for the drawer) through the physical act of drawing.

Drawing also plays a different, and deeper, role in our collaboration. Because the creative processes of the mathematicians involved are heavily visual and drawing-based, I can witness and connect to the process of doing mathematical research; this directly inspires artworks based on the geometries and forms involved. In turn, I respond with unique insights and resonances, the result of my practiced observational drawing practice across the natural world. The works that we create thus admit multiple overlapping perspectives, holding within them as they do the different logics of the artist and the mathematician.

To find out more about Gemma’s work and see some of her past exhibitions visit her websites below:

Artifact is back for another year! With an exciting programme of events and lectures planned over the next academic year, here’s our Co-Chair, Ros Pearce to tell you what we aim to create and why she got involved.

The Imperial College Union is once again teaming up with the Royal College of Art, in an exciting opportunity to promote communication and collaboration.

Artifact works like this: following a series of social events, scientists and artists from each college form partnerships. Taking inspiration from each other, these partnerships will work together to submit a proposal for the Artifact summer exhibition, to be shown at both Imperial and the RCA.

As a Scientist perhaps you would like the opportunity to explore your work creatively. Your work may have emotive or aesthetic value that you had not previously considered. Maybe you feel that your area has the potential to generate discussion. This is your chance to share your passion for your field with others.

As an Artist perhaps there is something that fascinates you about science. Science is transforming our world and our lives. Scientists can be seen as wizards, creators, destroyers, heroes, and the area of science commands incredible respect and power. Or perhaps there is a particular kind of expertise that you need to realise your ideas. Artifact provides a unique opportunity to access such expertise.

There is an increasing interest in interdisciplinary art, and I believe that some of the most thought-provoking work can come from the collaboration of the ‘two cultures’. From a young age people are sorted into ‘those who can do science’ and ‘those who can do the arts’. I think this is an oversimplification of the human intellect, and something that I always found restrictive. After all, some of the best scientific ideas have come from thinking creatively, and many artistic mediums require considerable technical expertise.

This is why I jumped at the opportunity to get involved with Artifact. Bringing together some of the brightest minds from two world-renowned institutions is sure to have interesting results. I’m already very excited to see what the final exhibition brings!

There’s just 1 month to go until our big exhibition at Imperial, and there is still time to get involved!

Next Monday 10th June, 6pm, join us at Imperial’s Art Studio (behind Garden Hall, SW7 1NA) for another meeting session with fellow artists and scientists. It’s your almost last chance to meet a partner to collaborate with, as well as a massive, science-inspired artwork for us all to contribute to on the night. If you’ve already started on a project, bring it along (or some photos) so we can see how things are going. If you haven’t formed a partnership yet we’d love to see you even more, and hopefully by the end of the evening we’ll have a clearer picture of our plans for the exhibition.

This will be the start of regular Monday night sessions in the lead-up to the exhibition (which opens in July), so let’s start off with a fantastic turnout!

As we move ever closer to our exhibition in July (yes, this July), we’re going to start having more regular meetings to help finalise partnerships and encourage progress on works to exhibit. This will start next Monday 13th May, at 6pm, with an informal gathering for everyone involved – whether you are in a collaboration partnership or still searching, join us for a session of brainstorming or presenting work in progress. Whatever stage you’re at, we’d love to see you!

The meeting will be held in Imperial’s new Art Studio. This is on the ground floor of Garden Hall (number 4 on this map), and access is via the garden to the rear (follow the path on the map indicated for disabled access, the back door to the hall leads directly into the studio). We’ll email out a contact number on the day to help find us if you haven’t been before.

Hello everyone! Another term is about to start /or has started and many of you will have the dreaded ‘E’ word (not eggses) coming up, why not think about what you’d like to create in a break? We’ll be having another event soon, but in the meantime sign up on the website, find someone and maybe even submit a proposal for the exhibition!

Also, if you haven’t already, It’s well worth going to see ‘Light Show’ at the haward gallery. You might even get some ideas…

It is quite popular though, and finishes on the 6th of may so you need to get your skates on.